purple planet wrote:David N. Snyder and LonesomeYogurt can you tell me examples meals you ate - that would be very helpful

Usually I made sure to include tofu or tempeh in large quantities, but otherwise I did a rotating lineup of spinach, broccoli, and other leafy greens as well as peanuts or almonds if I didn't include any main protein. Rice and beans, preferably together, are also great things to work in a few times a week. Coconut milk is also your friend when it comes to making curries or other large, multi-ingredient dishes. I stayed away from most grains besides rice and occasionally whole-wheat wraps. Honestly I found that Asian food was the easiest to "veganize" and I tended mostly towards simplicity, although I'm sure someone who is a better cook than I could wring more out of the ingredients and make any type of approach work.

Take a supplement for B12 and other necessities. You might also consider a general vegan vitamin and, if you're not too rigid, maybe some fresh fruit for an evening snack.

Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain:these conditions among human beings are inconstant,impermanent, subject to change.

purple planet wrote:David N. Snyder and LonesomeYogurt can you tell me examples meals you ate - that would be very helpful

שלום חבר(Hebrew greeting)

I eat a variety of foods; here is a sample:

Stir fry veggies and tofu, rice, veggie burger, fake-meat deli slices in a sandwich, falafel in a pita with salad (I know you know that one), salads, cooked vegetables in curry sauce, Indian foods made vegan such as malai kofta balls and other vegetarian Indian dishes without the dairy cream sauces that are usually in the recipes. Vegan Ethiopian foods such as mixed veggies, spicy lentils, green beans with carrots and spicy sauce, etc.Bar-be-Que tofu (just put slices of tofu on a cooking sheet, brush with bar-be-que sauce and bake for about 10 minutes; easy)Italian foods such as vegan lasagne, vegan pizza (soy cheese), pastas

As you can see, it doesn't have to be boring to be vegan and it can still be tasty.

Since April 2010 the Venerable Khuva Boonchum has been in a solitary retreat in the Rajagrha cave in Lampang Province, northern Thailand; he is determined to complete a three-years three-months three-weeks and three-days retreat. A life-long vegetarian, he lives on fruits and biscuits that his followers bring all the way and place them at the entrance of the cave. He comes out every now and then to take the food when there is no one around. He observes total silence while in retreat but answers dhamma questions in writing when one is put to him.

Some of the veggie burgers are very good, others taste like old shoe boxes, I learned the hard way. Another great thing to make is faux tuna salad: grind chick peas with a little garlic and that Japanese seaweed called Nori, which is not only edible but very nutritious. But don't use too much. It imparts a pleasant fishy taste to the chickpeas. Spread it on rye and by God it's like tuna salad. Use free-range chick peas please, the ones that frolicked happily in fields seem to taste better.

BB

Author of Redneck Buddhism: or Will You Reincarnate as Your Own Cousin?

gavesako wrote:I was just reading the biography of this monk in northern Thailand:

Since April 2010 the Venerable Khuva Boonchum has been in a solitary retreat in the Rajagrha cave in Lampang Province, northern Thailand; he is determined to complete a three-years three-months three-weeks and three-days retreat. A life-long vegetarian, he lives on fruits and biscuits that his followers bring all the way and place them at the entrance of the cave. He comes out every now and then to take the food when there is no one around. He observes total silence while in retreat but answers dhamma questions in writing when one is put to him.

That is amazing. He sounds like a serious monk and he lives on only biscuits and fruits!? How did / does he do that in regard to the 3-fold rule? Is he allowed to let the lay people know to bring him only those foods? Great discipline!

I think he is like those Tibetan monks doing tantric meditation practices and probably gets much energy from that. Also i don't think he follows the conventional Vinaya strictly in terms of having food offered into his hands.

gavesako wrote:I was just reading the biography of this monk in northern Thailand:

Since April 2010 the Venerable Khuva Boonchum has been in a solitary retreat in the Rajagrha cave in Lampang Province, northern Thailand; he is determined to complete a three-years three-months three-weeks and three-days retreat. A life-long vegetarian, he lives on fruits and biscuits that his followers bring all the way and place them at the entrance of the cave. He comes out every now and then to take the food when there is no one around. He observes total silence while in retreat but answers dhamma questions in writing when one is put to him.

That sounds like a bad diet...too many simple carbs. I hope he doesn't get health problems.

Many Tibetan yogis living in mountains and caves will subsist mostly on tsampa (roasted barley flour) for years and decades. They seem to come out very realized human beings. So maybe we make too big of a deal out of our diets.

Personally, I like to eat lots of fruit and veggies and nuts. I do admit, I am fascinated with peanut butter right now.

alan wrote:Monks have to follow the rules, but why would anyone else take up the unhealthy practice of restricting your food? Is there some inherent virtue in this practice? Thanks

What makes you think that it's unhealthy? Personal experience?I once did it for one month and I never in my whole life had more energy every day that in that period.

It's a energy thing. Up to a certain degree it's the less you eat, the more energy you have. That energy you can use for meditation instead digestion. Same with sleep.

Regards :-)

"An important term for meditative absorption is samadhi. We often translate that as concentration, but that can suggest a certain stiffness. Perhaps unification is a better rendition, as samadhi means to bring together. Deep samadhi isn't at all stiff. It's a process of letting go of other things and coming to a unified experience." - Bhikkhu Anālayo

I heard this saying “We eat food and food eat us” By the way I spoke to one of my Muslim friend (Islamic faith) and he said that he take one meal a day for forty days in Ramadan season. He said that he was quite fit and lost about eight kilos.

Last night I skip my dinner and got a headache this morning. One of my work friend said, may be my sugar level gone down. It seems to me that food control also a gradual training thing.

This may be worth a try, I've been trying to lose weight to help my knees out and while I'm eating a very healthy diet with the appropriate number of calories, and exercising... I am not losing much weight at all and it's been several months. My doctor measured my metabolism and commented that is so low/slow as to be hard to measure. Good news if I'm ever in a famine situation, poor news in a modern western culture.

Two meals seems to be sufficient for moderate physical exertion throughout ones day, even when the two meals are before noon, in my experience. I've even gained weight this way.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]

Hi RetroOh no! You have to try to go forward not back word. I still take three meals a day. I hope every day that I mange to skip my tea (dinner).I strongly beleive that will help with my practice if I have some success one day.

daverupa wrote:Two meals seems to be sufficient for moderate physical exertion throughout ones day, even when the two meals are before noon, in my experience. I've even gained weight this way.

It is my great hope that this will work for me as well. Sometimes I cannot believe the amount of time and effort expended on food, planning, buying, thinking about, preparing, eating; it feels endless. The idea of preparing and consuming all food for the day in the morning to early afternoon time frame and then simply being done with it all seems so freeing.

I seem to have settled on a schedule of waking at 0400 & eating around 0500 and again around 0900. The second is the larger of the two meals, and is either made at home along with breakfast and brought along or else held at an eatery, in which case the time is pushed forward to opening hours, as necessary. It seems sufficient for a day of steady walking.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

"And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]

Ha. Well, I think essentially you need to eat an amount that is comparable to the amount you exert. When I ate one meal a day, that was fine because I did a bare minimum of physical exercise.

This is why modern society is getting so fat... because exertion reduces (as technology and creature comforts pervade) and intake either remains stagnant or increases (as eating is increasingly regarded as a source of luxurious pleasure rather than of sustenance).

The notion of three meals a day is so unquestioned in modern society, yet there's no way in my mind that most people do enough activity to warrant the calorific intake that comes with three full meals, nevermind the snacks inbetween them.

Ha. Well, I think essentially you need to eat an amount that is comparable to the amount you exert. When I ate one meal a day, that was fine because I did a bare minimum of physical exercise.

This is why modern society is getting so fat... because exertion reduces (as technology and creature comforts pervade) and intake either remains stagnant or increases (as eating is increasingly regarded as a source of luxurious pleasure rather than of sustenance).

The notion of three meals a day is so unquestioned in modern society, yet there's no way in my mind that most people do enough activity to warrant the calorific intake that comes with three full meals, nevermind the snacks inbetween them.

Then the Blessed One, picking up a tiny bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monk, "There isn't even this much form...feeling...perception...fabrications...consciousness that is constant, lasting, eternal, not subject to change, that will stay just as it is as long as eternity." (SN 22.97)

alan wrote:Monks have to follow the rules, but why would anyone else take up the unhealthy practice of restricting your food?Is there some inherent virtue in this practice?

Nothing inherent in it.Actually it is about sense pleasures. The sight of food, the noise of food being chewed, the odor of food, the touch of food, the taste of food. It is the source for the maintenance of clinging to sense pleasures since itself is the cultivation of sense pleasures and since if the body is well fed desires will arise. Now you may imagine the benefits of reducing the frequency to the minimum, just to stay alive because if you don't stay alive you cannot tread the path but if you do not practice restraint you cannot tread the path to its (postulated) end either.